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When we did Mount Blair and Mealna Letter on Monday 26/8 two of the three Fionas around Glen Isla, I thought it would be nice to come to Glen Isla again to do Badandun Hill, the weather was looking good for the remainder of the week so we thought Friday was as good as any day to nip over. Looking at the map there's a nice parking area in Folda opposite the phone box so that's where we were going to set off from.
Nice and sunny Friday morning so we decided to set off early to spend a bit more time out in the fresh air, it was going to be a straight forward route so why not take advantage of the weather and take it easy
There was no problem parking, it's a large layby, with more than enough room, got the kit on and were off down the road towards the Bridge of Forter over the River Isla.
Views from the carpark
Just before the bridge there's a gate on the right leading onto the Cateran Trail, we went through this and headed up the Cateran Trail as far as a fork in the track at NO19696578 where we went straight on to start the climb up Badandun Hill.
Views on the way.
It's an easy track to follow and it takes you straight to the summit trig point which is slightly to the left of it, on the way and just before you reach the trig there's a small pile if stones, a "half cairn"
looking at it from the trig we couldn't make our minds up if it was slightly higher than the trig so we went to have a look just in case, looking back at the trig, still not sure
Summit views
Mount Blair was always with us
From the trig we carried on along the track and followed it down to another junction at NO21536854 with the intention of turning right to head off back down, on the way we could see a cairn on the hill in front of us so we looked at the map to see which hill it is, there's a good track running up it so it was easy to see that it's Craig Lair and it looked a good added extra so we turned left at the junction and followed the track to the summit, a good little extra, the round trip from junction to summit and back to junction was only 45 minutes so it was worth doing.
On the summit with Badandun Hill behind.
Views
Badandun Hill again
On the top we could see Mayar and thought it would make a good days walk along a wide ridge taking in Mid Hill, Tarmach Cairn and Bawhelps along the way, it would be an out and back the same way unless there's another way of doing it, I'll have to have a look at that
Mayer jusssst visible in the distance
We returned to the junction then set off along the track running around the flanks of Badandun Hill, it eventually joins up with the Cateran Trail by a gate and stile where there's a nice seat made out of a tree trunk which overlooks Auchintaple Loch, we had our lunch here in the sunshine enjoying the peace and quiet
Nice views
After lunch we turned right and over the stile along the Cateran Trail and followed it back to the gate near Bridge of Forter.
Auchintaple Loch
Not far to go now, one last view before we reached the gate
Back at the car, this was interesting, we don't see many signposts like this anymore
It looks like somebody's been trying to fool us
We thought this was a nice and enjoyable way to spend four and a half hours, it's all on good tracks which are easy to walk on, our "go to" hill when we were living in West Yorkshire was Whernside, we always enjoyed a few hours on that hill when we wanted something to do that was familiar and in any weather, our route around Badandun hill might just be our "new" Whernside, it's just about the same height and is about the same time and distance to travel to
